Sanity vs WordPress: selecting the right CMS for your homebuilder website

Your website is a key sales and marketing tool for your homebuilder. Choosing the right digital platform for growth is vital – and that starts with selecting the right content management system (CMS). A CMS tailored to your needs allows you to showcase lots and communities, integrate with internal tools for better efficiency, and scale seamlessly as your business grows.

For the majority of our homebuilder website projects, we typically recommend and work with one of two CMS platforms: WordPress or Sanity. Depending on your individual needs, we’ll recommend the set up which is right for you.

CMS selection: what to consider

When selecting a CMS, homebuilders should consider:

• Content management needs –
  • What types of content and media will you be working with? For example – lot listings, community pages, community plans, high-resolution images and video tours.
  • Are you a larger homebuilder looking to manage multiple brands from a single platform?
• Editing experience –
  • Who will be responsible for managing and updating website content?
  • Does your team have experience with a particular CMS?
• Flexibility and customisation –
  • Do you need highly customizable features such as advanced search functionality, interactive community plans, or lead generation tools like mortgage calculators?
• Scalability –
  • How much data do you currently manage?
  • What are your mid- to long-term growth expectations?
  • Will an increase in communities lead to higher website traffic or larger data processing needs?
• Cost –
  • What is your budget for the project – factoring in both initial investment and ongoing cost?

 

Should you go headless?

A headless website or headless CMS is a website setup that separates (or “decouples”) the front-end from the back-end content management system. Instead of being packaged as a single application where everything is loaded together each time a page loads, a headless setup keeps the front-end as a static layer and content is pulled from the CMS as data and cached via an API. This approach can improve performance, scalability, and flexibility but typically requires more development time and more investment upfront.

Sanity is a natively headless CMS, while WordPress isn’t – but it can be configured for a headless website setup.

Key things to know

WordPress

WordPress is an open-source content management system that’s free to use. It is the most popular CMS globally, powering 43% of all live websites. With a large support community and ecosystem, WordPress offers extensive resources and plugins for its users. While it’s traditionally a monolithic CMS, it can also be deployed as a headless solution.

Sanity

Sanity is a natively headless CMS with no built-in front-end platform. It operates on a subscription-based model which also includes back-end hosting. Although it’s less widely used – powering around 36,000 websites worldwide – it is trusted by major global brands including Puma and Sonos. Sanity structures and understands content as data, allowing for more customizable content types and relationships rather than adhering to a predefined format.

Sanity vs WordPress: Head-to-head

Before we dive in, it’s important to note that comparing Sanity and WordPress isn’t about deciding which one is better. Each CMS has strengths that may be a better fit depending on your organization’s specific needs. Our goal is to understand your requirements and recommend the best solution for you.

 

Editing experience

WordPress

• WordPress is a widely used platform, making it more likely that marketing teams are already familiar with its editing experience.
• It can be configured with reusable content blocks and features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface through the Gutenberg editor, simplifying content management.

Sanity

• Although Sanity is less widely used and may be less familiar to some marketing teams, its editing experience is just as intuitive and should be easy to pick up.
• Enables you to define completely custom content types, pages and posts and the relationships between them for a more customized editing experience overall.
• Offers real-time collaborative editing, allowing multiple members of your marketing team to work on content at the same time.
• Supports multi-site management just as WordPress does, but again this will be a more customizable management experience due to the nature of the platform.

 

Flexibility & customization

WordPress

• Supports multi-site management, allowing you to operate multiple websites from a single installation.
• WordPress is best suited for simpler content needs, but the fact that it’s open source means it can be customized to handle more complex requirements.
• Can function as either a traditional CMS or a headless solution.
• The large ecosystem of plugins enables you to add some functionality more quickly and easily.

Sanity

• Sanity is better suited for deep customization and complex projects with highly specific needs.
• As it’s natively headless, Sanity offers complete flexibility in choosing a front-end framework.
• There’s a growing ecosystem of plugins and add-ons, further extending its capabilities.
• The CMS can be tailored to present complex reporting in a simplified view – this could be useful if for example you wanted to include a dashboard to view inquiries across communities and lots at-a-glance.
• Advanced user permissions allow for granular control over access to different types of data in the CMS – useful if you’re running sites across multiple regions and only want the editor to be able to add, edit and view content assigned specifically to that site or region.

 

Scalability

WordPress

• Can be highly scalable when properly set up and optimized.
• Does have some limitations when handling complex data models and some larger-scale websites.

Sanity

• Due its headless architecture and cloud-based infrastructure, Sanity is highly scalable and better suited to large-scale, complex projects.
• It’s easy to extend and integrate with third-party platforms to automatically or programmatically pull in data from multiple sources.

 

Cost

WordPress

• Lower initial development costs.
• No ongoing platform fees.
• Ongoing support and maintenance is recommended to keep WordPress core and plugins updated.

Sanity

• Since it’s a fully custom environment, initial development costs tend to be slightly higher.
• Sanity is a paid platform so an ongoing subscription fee is required – but this includes back-end hosting, so you can save money there.
• You’ll just need to cover hosting for the front-end – note that Dalo can handle this!

 

Which CMS is best for your homebuilder website?

Choose WordPress (in a headless setup) if you want a familiar, user-friendly solution that’s easy to implement and manage. It’s an ideal choice for small to mid-sized homebuilders planning for future growth.

Choose Sanity if you need higher performance, better scalability, enhanced security and a more customizable setup with greater flexibility for content types and integrations. It’s best suited for homebuilders managing multiple medium to large communities with a wide range of lot types, providing a future-proof solution for long-term growth.

Need expert advice? We’ll carefully assess all of your requirements and needs and recommend the best solution for your business. Get in touch to discuss your website project.